The Mirai worm made its way into information security lore in September, when it was identified as the source of the punishing flood of junk traffic launched against Brian Krebs in retaliation for his investigative reporting about a couple of petty Israeli criminals; subsequent analysis showed Mirai to be amateurish and clumsy, and despite this, […]

James Cawley is a 50 year old Elvis impersonator from Ticonderoga, NY; his friend William Ware Theiss was costume-designer for the original Star Trek series, and left Cawley the blueprints for the original Star Trek Enterprise sets in his will — so Cawley rented out a 13,000 sqft shuttered supermarket and built an exquisite replica […]

For the past week, Naked Capitalism has run a series of articles by transportation industry expert Hubert Horan on the economic shenanigans of Uber, which cooks the numbers it shows investors, drivers and the press to make it seem like something other than a black box that uses arrogance and lawlessness to make a bet […]

The Black Friday Mac Bundle 2.0 is one of the Boing Boing Store’s best-selling Mac bundles yet, and it’s about to come to an end. If you don’t get your copy now, here’s what you’ll be missing:This bundle comes packing 9 top-rated Mac apps in one package, at the hugely discounted price of just $23.99. […]

The Boing Boing Store’s Gift Guide is full of ideas for pretty much anyone in your life like hipster ice cub trays, Xbox controllers, Halo Boards, and even diamond necklaces. As always, all products in the Boing Boing Store come at great discounts, too. Shop by price bucket starting at under $20. Under $20:Bloxx Jumbo Ice Trays […]

Unlike traditional lighters, the SaberLight features an electronic plasma beam that’s both rechargeable and butane-free. This sleek lighter is even approved by TSA, so you’ll never be stuck buying lighters you’ll just have to throw away partially used. For some people, like me, this is a pretty big game-changer. The SaberLight’s beam is actually both hotter and cleaner […]

Before optical fiber hit the scene, microwave backbone links were pretty serious business. Waveguides still crop up in certain niches; and 802.11b/g/n would like a word with you about the continued viability of microwave communications; but it is my understanding that microwave backbone arrangements like this were more or less wiped out.

Nevermind the exposure to weather, bad airplane pilots and lightning strikes — it can carry hundreds of calls! But seriously, I wonder how much it costs to lay fiber compared to building monoliths. Whereas additional fiber can be run through existing conduit to increase bandwidth, with towers, well, you need MORE / BIGGER TOWERS!

Given that glass suitable for low-attenuation fiber wasn’t produced until 1970, and the combination of (relatively) cheap lasers and very pure fiber wasn’t commercially available until the mid to late 70’s, that was probably a non-question at the time…

Once it matured, though, the matchup between the two technologies was a bit of a bloodbath.

If you like these old print ads, you’ll love the ATT Tech Archive on Youtube. I came across it when I was looking at old videos about air defense systems in the late 1950’s. Bell Labs worked on many of the Nike missile systems.http://www.youtube.com/user/ATTTechChannel

I work on this stuff for a living. I still find it fascinating that almost all of these towers are now bare, replaced by fiber. Even satellite has been replaced by fiber. I had signs taped to the floor, walls, and cabinets during the Olympics in China; the video feeds were transported to NYC via trans-pacific fiber because it was cheaper than satellite.

Some of the radio links still are in use in places that are too expensive to lay glass to; remote communities, rural areas, etc. These poor folks still have dial-up access to the ‘net, unless they subscribe to satellite internet service (which has horrible latency if you’re a gamer). Some of the links are still in use as a backup for critical customers that require more than redundant connectivity.

What has really sealed wireless’ fate is bandwidth. A single fiber routinely runs over a terrabit/sec these days, and the nodes in the network often enough pass data in the petabit/sec range.

I’m tempted to plan a roadtrip that passes as many of these old towers as I can manage just to photograph (ok, image…it’s all digital these days) them and the “remote terminal” buildings at their bases. I wonder if they’ve changed the locks….

This is how actually how I connect to the internet (and am viewing the image). I’m too remote to have DSL or Cable, so I have a microwave antenna for internet service. It’s better than dial-up (of course) or satellite.

Actually, some of this is coming back. In the low-latency trading market Microwave communications offer the lowest latency paths. Many trading firms are building them in, and as I understand it, there is work being done to connect Chicago to New York (among other places) right now.